Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Nothing specific, set mid third season.
A/N: Each chapter is told from a different point of view. Thanks goes to J and M for being such wonderful beta readers.
IT SOUNDS CHEAP WHEN I SAY that it was a case that changed my life, but it's true. I'm not the same person afterwards that I was before, and nor is anyone else I think, even though some of us, especially Sara and Grissom are trying hard not to show it. It all started as a slow shift on a Wednesday night. The busy week-end was over and people were occupied with work, too busy to spend time with their families. It's sad that the majority of homicides occur within the family. The rate of murders sharply increases during the week-ends and especially on week-end holidays. Before I got the job as a CSI, my picture of family, yes, of mankind in general was much more positive. Maybe I'm still naive, but the case that we got started on that Wednesday did a lot to take away some illusions.
Grissom had just tossed us the brief summary of a quadruple homicide downtown, and told us to drop whatever we were doing and get in the car.
The apartment was in the bad part of town -low rent housing, minimally maintained. The crime scene, a fourth floor apartment, was not in good shape either - overstuffed with furniture, no decoration. I'm not a master of home decorating, but I think my place is at least livable. This apartment was so desolate it was depressing. Grissom had assigned Sara and me to work the living room. The living room was a battlefield, shattered glass on the floor, probably from a beer bottle, chairs were fallen over, and there was blood spatter on the wall.
"Looks like he put up one hell of a fight," Sara commented, meaning the victim, a guy in his thirties who was lying dead by the door.
"No he didn't, at least not that I can tell," David had come in from the bedroom. "I've already taken a look at him, thought I'd leave him for you guys to have a look,"
"Well, thank you," Sara said and started taking pictures of the body.
"What can you tell us?" I asked, as David was not volunteering any more details.
"He probably died from a gunshot wound in the chest, looks like close range, large caliber, maybe a forty-five, but that's not official. No other injuries. He didn't do this," David made a waving gesture at the general chaos.
"Hey, Nick, look at that," Sara pointed to a pool of blood next to the body.
"Yeah, looks like he was moved, maybe to close the door. Because if he was lying where all the blood is, the door wouldn't close again. Brass said that the door was closed when the neighbor came,"
"Okay, so the killer knocks, the guy opens the door and gets shot. No chance to put up a fight. Maybe someone else from the family heard the shot, came running, and got in a fight with the killer,"
"Maybe, but the killer had a gun ready. Nobody would have stood a chance,"
"Well, taken by surprise, several people, there are lots of possibilities. We'll know more when we get that blood analysis," Sara pointed to the blood spatter on the wall.
We worked onwards in silence going about our routine work, processing the scene and collecting evidence, which would eventually lead us to people whose disregard for human life was nauseating to say the least.
tbc